Amid the uproar and suspicions on Monday from an excitable Gizmodo team regarding the leaked iPhone 4, and the subsequent confirmation from Apple’s lawyers yesterday, little has been done to determine the nitty gritty details of the iPhone’s specs or speculate on Apple’s actual plans for this summer’s iPhone 4 release.
Indeed searching through Gizmodo’s excitable (and long) article you’d be hard pressed to find any concrete details about what the phone can do. Given that Apple bricked up the phone remotely, shortly after the person who found the phone began using it, it’s difficult to determine much. Technical specifications missing which would be really nice to know are: processor speeds, drive capacity, battery life, screen resolution (materials used to produce the phone) all a little odd, since you’d think Gizmodo’d be able to do tests to find some of that out.
Either way, one thing looks fairly likely, given the lack of plastic and faux shiny metal of pervious models, along with their range of MacBook Pros it seems they’re going to position the iPhone as ‘green’, getting rid of the plastic and going for the either glass or ceramic back. This is a good move if they want to be targeting the ethical/green consumer.
A further thought worth considering perhaps, because this form factor is so different, I wonder whether this will mean that they will stop using the previous model as a cheaper alternative for customers and go back straight to the one model, now that we’re slowly creeping out of recession. However, given the pattern of the iPad’s launch, it seems quite likely that a lesser model of this new form factor may be the cheaper option (e.g. with less drive capacity) for those still less willing to splurge.
As with most Apple stuff, it’s always controversial when it first comes out, you have to hold it, touch it and play with it before you can make a real decision about it. It’s an interesting form factor, new and exciting because it’s different to previous models. It definitely seems to exude the Apple sense for simplicity in design which has been especially successful for them. However, as regards their OS, it seems that their simplicity has gone too far towards restricting developer control regarding developing languages used on their apps. A further problem: OS 4.0 seems to be too similar to previous OS versions (bar the controversial ‘multitask’) although keeping it simple for consumers, it’s getting tired, Apple really haven’t ‘innovated’ or pushed the boat out as most expected or wanted. I think OS 4.0 may let them down.
Whether this was an intended leak or not, it’s great publicity and has gotten everyone talking.